A quick note to anyone buying the Humble Indie Bundle 4: if you want Steam keys you'll have to pay at least $1 USD for the bundle. According to the official blog for the promotion, some "un-humble" buyers are paying one cent for the bundle and using/reselling the Steam Keys to game the Steam Holiday promotion currently underway. More from the blog:

"Hey guys, we’ve noticed that a number of un-humble users are buying lots of Humble Indie Bundle 4’s for one penny, and then using their Steam codes to 'legitimize' automated Steam accounts in order to increase their odds of winning prizes in Valve’s current raffle promotion. This is unfair to legitimate entrants and is definitely not what we wanted to encourage with Humble Indie Bundle 4. It’s a lose-lose situation for the indie developers, charities, Valve, and Humble Bundle.

Therefore, starting immediately, new orders under a humble threshold of $1 will not contain Steam keys.

If you can’t afford a dollar but still need a Steam key and promise not to resell it or otherwise abuse it, please contact our support team with your humble appeal and we’ll purchase a new bundle for you on a case by case basis."

While some might complain that this goes against the whole "pay-what-you-want" nature of the bundle promotion, others argue that spending a penny and then trying to manipulate a rewards system is much more nefarious.

For those interested in buying the 12-game bundle for more than $1, check out humblebundle.com

Comments

I fully support what they've done. They also went the extra mile by offering the Steam key options to those whom DID buy the bundle legitimately and not to abuse Valve's raffling system. Sadly, there will always be jerks in this world that try to get ahead using highly questionable methods.

Hmm I didn't think the payment processors The Humble Bundle uses would allow a payment that small, oh well. It's too bad cheapskates want to game the system for chance to get free stuff on Steam. A dollar minimum seem plenty fair given how much one gets from buying a bundle.

I am going to boost my payment, I really want them to break 2 million and every bit helps.

I felt like a cheapass when i only paid $6.50 for the fourth bundle. I paid $15 for the second bundle, and i cant remember what i paid (maybe $5) for the inversion bundle (i think that's what it was called)

Anyone paying only .01 isn't being cheap, they're being stupid. Anyone with a credit card, paypal account, or whatever else has at least a couple dollars. If you don't what the hell are you doing spending ANY money on video games? Further what are you doing spending time playing video games if you don't have even a couple dollars to your name? Go mow a lawn, shovel a driveway, or something to make a couple bucks.

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Andrew Eisen: In other words, a hero is male because that's the default. A hero is female because of a gender-related reason.03/31/2015 - 5:32pm

Andrew Eisen: Her point is that "When archetypal fantasy heroes in games are overwhelmingly portrayed as men, it reinforces the idea that... women should be able to empathize with male characters but that men needn’t be able to identify with women’s stories."03/31/2015 - 5:30pm

Andrew Eisen: Daniel - She doesn't say that in any of the TvW videos and I doubt she's said elsewhere that all games with male protagonists are male power fantasies. Anyway, you seem to be conflating two different ideas.03/31/2015 - 5:30pm

Wymorence: For me it just boils down to the fact that, even at a giant company, when a game comes out annually it just gives it a vibe of being rushed out the door. And god knows Unity sucked some major lemur with all its bugs...03/31/2015 - 4:22pm

PHX Corp: I launched my spotify account today, and I kinda went a little overboard with adding music03/31/2015 - 3:59pm

Sora-Chan: Con't. Games like AC are a pain to someone like me who likes to play games in order. So when a game gets too many releases too quickly, it puts me off. Only exceptions are games that have no interconnected underlying stories like the FF games.03/31/2015 - 2:53pm

Sora-Chan: Wikipedia has rarely let me down on matters like this. But yeah... AC needs a break.. like two.. or three... or eight years.03/31/2015 - 2:51pm

Conster: There's 9 already?! I think I played 1, 2, and the ones inbetween 2 and 3.03/31/2015 - 2:23pm

Sora-Chan: Con't There are now Nine... of just the main entries into the series. There are 13 more in the "other games" department.03/31/2015 - 2:15pm

Sora-Chan: I tried to get into AC. Was having a decent time with the first one, at which point they had already released three titles. Then a fourth came out... then a fifth... the wall kept growing before I could finish the first.03/31/2015 - 2:14pm

Daniel Lewis: I think ubisoft should give AC a break before it's milked to death,and i'm a big fan of the games03/31/2015 - 1:15pm

Daniel Lewis: The only thing said i disagree with is the final quote on Men's experiences are seen to be universal but women are gendered,though doesn't anita say that games with male protagonists are male power fantasies,so in turn both are gendered03/31/2015 - 1:08pm

Daniel Lewis: i found the video to be much better than any of the TvW series and it's about time the positive women are put in the spotlight03/31/2015 - 1:06pm

Daniel Lewis: So feministfrequency released a positive female character video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXmj2yJNUmQ03/31/2015 - 1:05pm

Daniel Lewis: I think the guy who made the direct leak said it was an april fools joke when a real one was announced03/31/2015 - 12:43pm

MaskedPixelante: No way Nintendo would let information like that get out. Remember, they shut down a memoir about the localization of Earthbound by enforcing a 20 year old NDA on the author.03/31/2015 - 12:42pm